I am not originally from Sheffield, but have lived here for 30 years .When I go back to my home town -only 30 miles away and ask people if they want some spice,they don't really know what I am talking about and think I am being a bit suggestive .How did sweets come to be called spice here in Sheffield ?
Abi

Do they? Ive never heard them called that before.

Didn't realise it was just sheffielders that said spice, I think you find it is only the older generation that still refer to sweets as spice. I used to think it was ever so amusing when i was young though don't really know why.

Sugar n' spice. . n all fings nice. . spice = sweets, treats and lolly pops etc...

Simple really.

i have never called sweets spice but my grandad (bless him) called them that! he also spoke like he was from barnsley tho, so maybe it comes from there and not sheffield!?!

I'm from Rotherham an we used to call 'em spodges when we were kids. Has anyone else come across this?

Spice and pots. :)

Kets and dishes, I always knew them as :D

Didn't realise it was just sheffielders that said spice, I think you find it is only the older generation that still refer to sweets as spice.

My Grandma used to call them spice, but not heard anyone say that in ages.

You lot have got some weird slang.

They always used to call Bassetts 'the spice factory', I dont know why exept that they made spice I suppose. Its better than calling it 'cahndy' :hihi:

I was thinking about this today when I said it myself. I often call sweets spice.

We had a teacher at school from Brighton, I can remember her face when some one asked her "would you like a spice miss?" She hadn't got a clue what it meant.

I am not originally from Sheffield, but have lived here for 30 years .When I go back to my home town -only 30 miles away and ask people if they want some spice,they don't really know what I am talking about and think I am being a bit suggestive .How did sweets come to be called spice here in Sheffield ?
Abi

Dont forget, Its them thats wrong, ask them why they call spice such a daft name as sweets. Then they probably wont know what you mean by 'daft' either:D

My ex in Preston was confounded when I used spice (meaning sweets of course) but we're not as bad as the lancashire lot, they call sweets...toffee's:confused:
Funny that as toffee's to me mean the stuff you get from Thorntons.

Sugar n' spice. . n all fings nice. . spice = sweets, treats and lolly pops etc...

Simple really.

That would have been my explanation.

There used to be desingnated sweet shops with all the specialised sweets kept in jars on shelves. You'd ask for 2oz of Pineapple Chunks, a qtr of Fudge and maybe a stick of licorice and a sherbet dip etc. Do you remember the '1d Arrow Toffee Bar' -1d was an old penny? They also sold boxes of chocolates etc and ice-creams. I guess it has been embraced by the all-enveloping newsagent because you don't seem to see all the jars anymore at the 'Spice Shop'.
The shopkeeper would have a small scoop to put 'Cherry Lips' and 'Floral Gums' into one of those triangular paper bags.

Sugar = Spice = DENTIST!

I thought it was more of a Barnsley term?

I Have Allways Called Sweets Spice But Here In Australia They Call Them Lollies

After a very gruelling search I've found an explination!

Production shops based in Sheffield knocked out thousands of sweets back in those days, and Sweets came in all flavours and shapes!.

Shop workers used the term spice, to differentiate the types of sweets on production.

Spice:- "Something added to a mixture, to aid with Flavouring and zest"

So basically it was a sweet operatives term, which eventually made its way outside of the factory and became a Sheffield term for sweets!

The answer is simple and is where the rhyme comes from - sweets were originally made from sugar and spice or herbs, like cinnamon, mint, lavender and suchlike.

One of my friends calls sherbet by some strange name but I can't think of it at the moment and it's bugging me - anyone help please?

The answer is simple and is where the rhyme comes from - sweets were originally made from sugar and spice or herbs, like cinnamon, mint, lavender and suchlike.

One of my friends calls sherbet by some strange name but I can't think of it at the moment and it's bugging me - anyone help please?


would it be kaylie ( pr. kayl-eye) ?

my mum, nanans and grandads always called sweets by the term 'spice' and sherbert was always kayli!

:hihi:

Or Space Dust???????

Ive heard Sherbet called "Space Dust" in Sheffield loads of times!

Or would that be the retail name?

would it be kaylie ( pr. kayl-eye) ?

my mum, nanans and grandads always called sweets by the term 'spice' and sherbert was always kayli!

:hihi:

That's the one - thank you! :thumbsup:

Sugar &spice &all things nice ,thats what little girls are made of (pre 1900 ?) In Leicester its Rocks. Candy simply means boiled sugar as in candied apples.Go to far-east English take's on a whole new meaning

Or Space Dust???????

Ive heard Sherbet called "Space Dust" in Sheffield loads of times!

Or would that be the retail name?

Space Dust was something we had as kids which was brought back later as Popping Candy (It pops in your mouth) I have always known sherbet as sherbet and sweets as sweets not spice.

I moved to Sheffield from Hull when I was ten years old so that would be 1954. I had never heard of “spice” and didn’t know what it was. I couldn’t understand the other children, I didn’t know what “thee and “thou” was. When someone broke their arm it was put in a “pot” I had only heard of having your arm in a “plaster” someone was six “foot” tall and I had always said six “feet” tall. If someone dropped something in the playground they said they had dropped it on the “floor” and I always thought the “floor” was inside and the ground was outside. I was in a right old pickle and a little unhappy because I couldn’t understand the other children.

A few of my relatives call sweets spice but i never have :|

Don't think that Spice is a Barnsley term - I've only lived there for about 5 years though but they call food "snap", pronounce don't "dunt" and instead of playing they say "laking" (as in lake?!) It takes a bit of getting used to but i'm a Sheffield lass at heart and we 'av the weird ones! Anyone else call a small outside passageway a Jennel? Everyone who comes from anywhere else seems to say Ginnel?

When I was a kid in hillsborough in the 70s all the rough kids called sweets spice but I thought it sounded scruffy and childish even then. I got the impression that they used to purposefully use the term rather than sweets because they thought it made them look hard.
I however, made up my own words. and still do.

harazbunda hn fer !

'Spice' as a term is (was?) definitely used in the dales and West Yorkshire too, but again generally by the older generation- shame to lose the richness of local dialects really. And I can remember my Auntie Mavis (who was from the other side of the hills) offering me a 'toffee' when I was a little lad.

Don't think that Spice is a Barnsley term - I've only lived there for about 5 years though but they call food "snap", pronounce don't "dunt" and instead of playing they say "laking" (as in lake?!) It takes a bit of getting used to but i'm a Sheffield lass at heart and we 'av the weird ones! Anyone else call a small outside passageway a Jennel? Everyone who comes from anywhere else seems to say Ginnel?

'Snap' is coalminers slang from the boxes they kept their food in. They used to 'snap' shut to keep the coal dust out,

It's a Yorkshire thing

'Spice' as a term is (was?) definitely used in the dales and West Yorkshire too, but again generally by the older generation- shame to lose the richness of local dialects really. And I can remember my Auntie Mavis (who was from the other side of the hills) offering me a 'toffee' when I was a little lad.

I'm from over the hill and toffee and kaylay (sp?) is definitely the way we refer to spice and sherbet/sugar crystals. It's only through reading this thread I've realised that it sounds strange to people outside of the area I grew up in.

I guess it's in the same way as saying 'I'll be there 7 while 10' doesn't grate at all on my ears but I know it winds up some people (southerners especially) summat chronic.

I think the word 'while' must be the most confusing one.
Where as we mean it as 'until' eg. 8 while 12 meaning a period of time, others seem to see it as meaning something else. In that sense what else could it mean?
As I have said 'its them as is wrong not us'

lots of interesting replies thanks!but still no definite reason why they are called spice.
I bet the Arctic Monkeys know what spice are !
btw. in my home town they don't call them sweets either - they call them tuffees - is that weird .
abi

In Rawmarsh, Rotherham, the term "spice" was used to denote sweets by the older generation. We used to buy Kali too, and I thought my Sheffield partner was posh when he called it Rainbow Crystals!

Spice is purely a colloquialism, rather the same as calling chewing gum spidge

Don't think that Spice is a Barnsley term - I've only lived there for about 5 years though but they call food "snap", pronounce don't "dunt" and instead of playing they say "laking" (as in lake?!) It takes a bit of getting used to but i'm a Sheffield lass at heart and we 'av the weird ones! Anyone else call a small outside passageway a Jennel? Everyone who comes from anywhere else seems to say Ginnel?

Having grown up in Barnsley I can confirm 'spice' was indeed the favoured term for sweets among kids during the 70's. Probably died out now. Nice to know 'snap' and 'laike' are still about though. We also used to call grown up men 'mester'...which you don't hear as much nowadays. We said 'ginnel' with a hard g...rather than gennel...with a soft g. In the midlands it's often a 'jitty.' A 'snicket' though...that's something totally different again!;)

if tha sups too many sherbets, tha'll bi kayli'd

I have never known sweets to be called spice. Thats weird.

When I was a kid in hillsborough in the 70s all the rough kids called sweets spice but I thought it sounded scruffy and childish even then. I got the impression that they used to purposefully use the term rather than sweets because they thought it made them look hard.
I however, made up my own words. and still do.

harazbunda hn fer !
Snob post of the decade ?

Do many people use Chud or Chuddy for Chewing Gum

Do many people use Chud or Chuddy for Chewing Gum

We always called it Spoggy (Spoggie?) - but I'm from Oldham!

As a kid in Scotland, sweets were sweeties, and sherbert was kelly! Pop was lemonade - didn't matter what flavour, you'd get orange or cherry 'lemonade'! Lemonade was 'plain' lemonade.

Loads of different words for everyday things, even pronunciation is different. I always say scone to rhyme with on, here people say it to rhyme with moan. Neither is wrong. I've been in South Yorks for 30+ years, and I've only really been confused once. Some folk use 'our' in front of every family member's name. I once thought a colleague had a daughter called Ann Marie, months later I realised she was called 'our (pronounced aar) Marie'!

Many people will know that Sheffield used to be spoken of as the “Largest village in England” due to its isolation in years gone by. I have often wondered if our dialect has it’s roots in early English and has changed slower than in other parts of England due to fewer outside influences?

What do people think?

As a kid, I used to buy "spice fish" at the open market. I could never recapture the taste, until on my last visit to Sheffield I bought a bag of "Yorkshire mixtures" which had some fish in it, and they did taste the same.
Alas, in Queensland heat & humidity, I had to eat them quickly, before they went sticky and melted

When I first came to Sheffield, I got lost and an old boy gave me directions which included going through a jennell. It was only later I found he meant an alleyway. Similarly I was totally confused at being offered spice - I thought it must be some weird local custom to carry around nutmeg, or cinnamon or something of that ilk. As for working out what on earth a breadcake was, or trying to get an ordinary fishcake and chips for my tea .....!

Sweets were always spice to me when I was a kid, same as pop was fizzy drinks. :)

Moving fm Sheffield to Leicester 1946,I was the kid always stood in front of the class to tell one of my many many learnt poem's,with not only Sheffield accent but a very rough one.The class then sat for 1-2hrs to try and decypher my English.Ialways remember my mother sending me to shop for some soop what sort of soop iwas asked tomata soop,Nor silly bugger big block green soop ya wash clo'e or kids we'n.

I'm from Rotherham an we used to call 'em spodges when we were kids. Has anyone else come across this?
In West Yorks we used to call sweets 'Spogs' - pretty close to 'Spodges' - regional difference?

it relates most likely to the initial concept of delicacies made from "spices" as the original sweets of the early era's were made from cinnamon, liquorice sticks,etc. obviously imported spices & not the sweet sugared items we know today as confectionary.
as the only intelligent race in the Uk, Sheffielders decided to maintain the term as the correct historical terminology.

On the subject of "Spice", I've got an original Willy Wonka CD Soundtrack up on ebay this week (!) (tenuous link, but what the hell)

Come on folks - it's on at 99p is sealed and is from the original version and not the Tim Burton "remake" / interpretation from last year.

See it here...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4828504728

It's scrumdiddlyumptious!

My b/f is from Brum and calls spice....rocks!

Moving fm Sheffield to Leicester 1946,I was the kid always stood in front of the class to tell one of my many many learnt poem's,with not only Sheffield accent but a very rough one.The class then sat for 1-2hrs to try and decypher my English.Ialways remember my mother sending me to shop for some soop what sort of soop iwas asked tomata soop,Nor silly bugger big block green soop ya wash clo'e or kids we'n.
We went on a coach tour of Britain with an Irish guide. Travelling through Yorkshire, he got the Marriot Edgar (author of Albert & the Lion, etc) poem about "The First Yorkshire Pudding". What his Irish accent did to the Yorkshire words just had to be heard to be believed.

when I was a kid we went to visit my great gran in Rawmarsh, she always gave us 10p 20p 50p (increase over the years) to go get some 'spice' from thw local shop, guess it always stuck with me! :)

Because we can.. :-)

isn't it jst older people who call it spice?
i call them sweets. or sometimes candy :D

isn't it jst older people who call it spice?
i call them sweets. or sometimes candy :D

This should be a flogging offence

Sweet & spice is a fabulous combination.